57 Best Performing Arts Venues in Texas, USA

Founded in 1972, the Kerrville Folk Festival is the oldest continuously running music festival of its kind in the country. It usually begins the Thursday before Memorial Day and continues 24/7 for 18 days straight, with performances by more than a hundred singer-songwriters and their bands. Approximately 30,000 music lovers come from all over the world to see both longtime and emerging bluegrass, folk, and Americana artists give intimate performances.

The performing arts scene is alive and well in Austin thanks in part to this expansive venue along the shores of Lady Bird Lake. The Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Center for the Performing Arts (to use it's full name—it's generally shortened to the Long Center), plays host to a wide variety of performing arts groups and touring national and international acts like the Vienna Boys Choir, Burt Bacharach, and Blue Man Group. It also serves as the permanent home to Austin Lyric Opera, and the Austin Symphony Orchestra. In addition, the center houses a wing for community arts education programs.

Colorfully festooned floats create a Mardi Gras spectacle each winter, turning the River Walk into a 2½-mile party. Arneson River Theatre comes alive with music and entertainment. 

Not only the performance space for the University of Texas at Austin's excellent orchestra, dance, drama, and lyric opera productions, this intimate, modern 400-seat proscenium theater also brings a wide range of professional musicians to the stage, including chamber music and solo recitals. In addition to classical music, you might catch a show, such as Jersey Boys or Annie, or recording artists, such as Stewart Copeland or John Mellencamp. The theater is located in the same building as Bass Concert Hall. 

McKinney Avenue Contemporary (often called the MAC) offers space to alternative artists of all disciplines, and the versatile space offers room for video and live performances. Kitchen Dog Theater performs here.

Since the time of HemisFair '68, this small but impressive two-story center has exhibited Mexican culture as depicted in film, dance, art, and more.

A multipurpose arena and venue currently under construction, Moody Center is set to replace downtown's existing (42-year-old) Frank Erwin Center in April 2022. The state-of-the-art stadium will feature a staggering 530,000 square feet that will welcome performers from around the world, as well as athletes from the University of Texas's men's and women's basketball teams. 

Parts of the river are drained to clear the bottom of debris, and locals revel in the subsequent parties, parades, and the crowning of a Mud King and Queen.

The annual San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo draws about 1.5 million visitors to the AT&T Center and Freeman Coliseum for 2½ weeks of dozens of events and attractions. Over more than 70 years, this event has grown to be one of the largest and most popular in the city—featuring top names in entertainment, plus a ranch rodeo, youth rodeo, livestock show, horse show, and carnival. 

The San Antonio River is dyed green as the River Walk celebrates St. Patrick's Day with 14 decorated floats featuring Irish entertainment, including bagpipes. This event started in 1968 and has since been organized by the San Antonio River Walk Association and the Harp & Shamrock Society of Texas to honor St. Patty and the city's Irish culture with musicians, artisans, and dancers.

During this annual summertime event, more than 40 cultures exhibit their contributions to the history and heritage of Texas through music, food, dance, and folktales at the UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures at Hemisfair. 

The annual commemoration of Texas independence takes place every March in Alamo Plaza, marking the Texas Declaration of Independence that proclaimed freedom from Mexican rule on March 2, 1836. You'll find musical performances and day-long living-history exhibits.

On the western outskirts of town, The Backyard offers a modern stage setting beneath the starlit sky featuring a similar line up of classic rock bands, singer-songwriters, country musicians and more during the spring, summer and fall. (Open from March through October.) Each season opens with an annual performance from the Hill Country's adopted son, Willie Nelson.

Designed quite literally to be for the city, this performing arts venue supports the work of Austin-based directors, designers, and performers committed to stage performance. In addition to offering a seasonal lineup of productions that range from Shakespeare to musicals to edgy comedies, the theatre also fosters theatrical educational through community outreach.

Along the banks of Lady Bird Lake, this cultural arts center is a celebration of latino heritage that blends a variety of theater, music, dance, literature, and culinary traditions into workshops, live performances, and educational classes to help foster a cultural foundation throughout Austin. On the last Tuesday of every month, there is a free screening of films from the Golden Era of Mexico's cinema in its main auditorium. The building houses two art galleries with free admission (closed Sunday).

The largest professional African-American theater company in the Southwest stages gripping performances on its own stage in Midtown.

The Grand 1894 Opera House stages musicals and hosts concerts year-round. It's worth visiting for the ornate architecture alone. Sarah Bernhardt and Anna Pavlova both performed on this storied stage.

This Robert A. M. Stern–designed center's two opulent theaters, Zilkha Hall and Sarofim Hall, host Broadway Across America and Theater Under the Stars productions.

Located in the town square, The Odeon Theater is a Texas landmark. In continuous operation since it was built in 1928, the Odeon serves as both a movie theater and a venue for live shows.

Billed as "the world's first rodeo," The West of the Pecos Rodeo is held during the last week of June in Pecos (75 miles north of Fort Davis). Rodeo events take place throughout town, including a dance held each night after the roping, but the main event is conducted at Buck Jackson Rodeo Arena.

The Waco Civic Theatre produces several plays a year that feature local talent.

The Waco Hippodrome Theatre hosts national touring productions in a 1914 building in the heart of downtown.

The Houston Grand Opera and the Houston Ballet perform in this center's two side-by-side venues, the Roy and Lillie Cullen Theater and the Alice and George Brown Theater.

One of the city's most vibrant and innovative theaters, this nonprofit now has an expansive multistage complex that hosts a number of theatrical performances, intimate celebrity talks, and special events year-round. An integral part of the Austin community for nearly 90 years, ZACH also serves the local arts community with a year-round season of shows, theater camps, and educational activities.

Bring a blanket and picnic basket and enjoy a Broadway-inspired musical under the warm Texas sky. Right in the heart of the Zilker Park complex, this locally run outdoor theater has been performing on the hillsides just across from Barton Springs for 61 years and counting. The shows run through summers only and charge a pay-as-you-wish admission.